Death on a Factory Farm wins the 2009
Genesis Award for Best TV Documentary

Length: (1:28)

Producers: TOM SIMON and SARAH TEALE

Edited by: GEOF BARTZ, A.C.E.

Music: JAMIE LAWRENCE

Camera & Sound: TOM SIMON

Associate Producer: DAVID PONTILLO

Supervising Producer: JOHN HOFFMAN

Executive Producer: SHEILA NEVINS

Three years in the making, Death On A Factory Farm
follows “Pete,” an investigator who appeared in
our 2006 HBO film Dealing Dogs, as he
investigates charges of animal cruelty on a
central Ohio hog farm. Wearing a hidden camera
he documented numerous disturbing scenes
including piglets being tossed into crates from
across a room, an unhealthy piglet being slammed
against a wall to euthanize it, and finally,
sick sows being hung by a chain from a forklift
until they choked to death.

Based on the evidence Pete gathered, prosecutors filed ten
charges of animal cruelty against the farm’s owners
and one employee. Our cameras then take viewers
inside the courtroom, where the prosecution and
defense wage a tense battle over the legality and
morality of practices rarely seen by the public.
The judge presiding over the case described them as
“distasteful and offensive,” but farm owner Ken
Wiles and other members of the tight-knit Ohio
farming community defend as the commonplace reality
of producing livestock for consumption.